the blog of LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange

Citizen dialog for transparent process

Water

Friday, 15 March 2013

Even closer than
Tampa Bay
or
Fort Myers,
Tallahassee has sinkhole problems in our same Floridan Aquifer
just across the state line.
Will the Lowndes County Commission do anything about our sinkhole
problems before people start losing their insurance and get sucked
into holes in the ground?

This is not rocket science.
Thousands of businesses have been using such issue tracking systems
(also known as trouble ticket systems) for many years.
There is off-the-shelf software to implement them.
Beyond the obvious advantages to the citizens of being able to
tell what's going on with their issues, such systems also
greatly aid local governments by

All, I appreciate the update on where the city stands on moving the
sewer all together—I just wish we had been kept informed of
the plans over the last 4 years. Living with the *real* threat of
flooding is stressful enough, add in the guaranteed associated
sewage spill is more than I can handle.

I also appreciate the city workers spreading lime and working on the
sewer line behind my house today. But I have questions—What
about the sewage in my yard and under my house? Is this my
responsibility?

Tuesday, 12 March 2013

A surprising number of questions were asked by Commissioners
at yesterday morning's Work Session, yet still nobody asked
about the well near
one of the proposed rezonings.
We had a microphone failure during the first few items;
sound picks up as the Commissioners start asking questions on
5.b. REZ-2013-04.
Because of the sound glitch
you can't tell that for sure from the videos that nobody discussed SPLOST,
but Gretchen was there from call to order to adjournment, and she didn't hear anything about
SPLOST.
Maybe they'll say something about it tonight at their 5:30 PM Regular Session,
at which they vote on these rezonings and contract.

Pastor Rick Shuck told WBBH in Fort Myers on Monday the sinkhole has
caused uneven floors, cracks in the walls and a hole in the ground
so large that a landscaper fell into it.

Shuck says they had to end Faith Community Church's Sunday service
early because "it's just not safe anymore." He says some cracks in
the walls are a half-inch wide and part of the auditorium floor has
dropped about 4 1/2 inches.

Geological engineers say it's definitely a sinkhole. But the
church's insurance company sent engineers who determined there is no
problem. So next month the two sides are heading to mediation.

City leaders, please, no more of the blame game. The citizens of
this community are imploring you to just accept responsibility and
fix it.

Yet the VDT has
spent the last week blaming the city,
and has accepted no responsibility for its own role, or that of
its editor, Kay Harris, in the recent loss of the SPLOST referendum
that would have further funded wastewater work in Valdosta.

DALTON, Ga. — Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas believed
to lie below the hills of northwest Georgia have remained virtually
untouched and unwanted — until now.

Shale gas drilling is slowing across the country, but a handful of
companies are poking around this corner of the state looking for the
next natural gas "play." If they succeed, Georgia could join the
ranks of states reaping jobs, revenue and fears of environmental
damage from energy production, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has
learned....

In Alabama, the Conasauga shale field contains 625 trillion cubic
feet of gas, according to Bill Thomas, a geologist who taught at the
University of Kentucky and Georgia State. A similar amount could be
underground in Northwest Georgia, he added.